Hey guys. Just got Photoshop this weekend, and tried my first go at editing my own shots. I used Fergul's workflow and found it very easy to use.

Here's my question.

Is this picture near acceptable? It's in the queue so I can post it here, but I'd be glad to remove it and not waste the screener's time if you tell me it's not A.Net material (which my shots never are since I haven't gotten to use my new Konica Minolta DiMage Z6 yet...but that all changes Wednesday!)

Quoting Eadster (Reply 1):Nice shot but I think it will be rejected for size and grainy.

Any areas in particular where grain was really bad? (I know I deleted the pictures, I probably shouldn't have done so without asking these questions first...) Also, what was wrong with the size. I followed Fergul's workflow and used the sizes he recommended.

Quoting ANITIX87 (Thread starter):In addition to what Martin has said, it also seems to have a slight slope from right to left and needs a small amount of CW rotation.

Is it OK to use small verticals to level a picture? I used the tiny pole next to the runway light and PS told me that the picture was perfectly level. Maybe that wasn't a good reference?

Quoting Mfz (Reply 3):I'd also assume this one would get rejecetd for either "grainy" or "quality"!

Is quality a fixable fault? Or is this picture not worth giving a second shot?

To be honest, I doubt that they are worth working on. There is grain all over the shot but only a small amount as I've seen alot more in shots. Shots need to be very crisp and clear from now on. Airliners seems to have changed the acceptance standards a heap over the last few days as I only got 2 shots accepted out of about 10. The quality from what I thought, was not different to any others in the queue, so basically, shots must be perfect in everyway before you can expect to see them in the database. You'll have to be very particular in what you upload from now on, so expect many rejections.

From looking at your image above, you are close to getting something accepted so keep up the work. Remember to follow Fergul's workflow closely and you should have some success.

Quoting ANITIX87 (Reply 4):
Is quality a fixable fault? Or is this picture not worth giving a second shot?

Without wantig to disappoint you and just judging based on my own experiences a "quality"-rejection is in 99% of the cases a final killer to the photo as most of the times the problem lies not in the post-processing but much rather either in difficult light-conditions the photo was taken in or in bad settings (e.g. too high ISO-settings) of the camera.

However, (aviation-)photography is constant process of learing and improving, so just keep on trying - and one day you'll succeed!

A little too overexposed, too bright like. The more brightness you increase the more grain will become evident. One small trick I used is when you are rubbing out the jaggies you can also rub out some of the grain on certain colours, like blue.

If you want to you can send me the original shot, i.e. straight from the camera, and I'll have a go, but don't expect miricales as I think my monitor is going off a bit, I need to get a calibration tool.